I was shaking my head, trying to get my bearings after that last run through one of the scenarios. The whole shift had been filled with one brutal exercise after the other, wiping out the squadron time after time. During the evaluations, none of the pilots got away without leaving feathers, even Commodore Ryker, in my opinion the best pilot in both groups, had been destroyed again and again. The time in the nebula was only the first of many situations that had cost him his virtual life, simply due to a combination of bad luck, worse odds and deadly enemies.

Getting out of the simulator, I saw the rest of the pilots and there was a curious divide. The older, more experienced pilots looked grim but determined while the younger pilots simply looked shell-shocked. Their expressions mirrored my own, a feeling of helplessness and abject failure. I had been slowly getting confident that I managed to reach the level of the rest of the squadron and now that confidence was shaken.

“Get some sleep, people. Tomorrow, we’ll continue.” Commodore Ryker ordered, getting a salute from the pilots before turning and walking away.

“Twitch, want to get some food?” Commander Siloh asked, she was one of those who just looked determined.

“Yes, Ma’am.” I agreed, not quite sure how to act with her in a social setting. She was, at the end of the day, a superior officer, whom I respected quite a bit. But I was hungry and getting dinner seemed like a good idea.

“Just call me Wildcat, I don’t mind, I like my nickname.” she suggested, a grin breaking her serious expression for a moment. “And I have a feeling we’ll all need someone to help us through the coming weeks. I’ve seen the Commodores like that and today will look like a walk through the park when they are done with us.” she continued, making me blanch a little. The scenarios had been hard enough and she said it would be even harder? Oh, dear…

We walked together and discussed a few of the scenarios we had been in, mostly it was me wondering just where they had come up with them. It was then, that Wildcat gave me an interesting bit of insight.

“They took them from the last war, trying to account for change in technology. And they know that it is a bad way to prepare for the next war but it’s the best they can do. Both of the Commodores served back then, Carmine Squadron, as it is today, was forged in the fire of that war.” she explained, her eyes taking on a distant look and I felt myself push my estimate for her age upward.

“I joined in during the end of the war, serving alongside a few of the current pilots and under Commodore Ming’s leadership. Back then, she only was a Commander, promoted early due to the pilot-losses the Federation suffered. The Tellurians had better ships and weapons and we were losing, quite badly at that.” she continued, shivering a little, as if she was suddenly cold.

“You think that there will be another war with the Tellurians?” I asked, not quite sure where she was going.

“Maybe, hopefully not. You need to understand, we were dying left and right, without a way to stop the bleed. But we got lucky in two different ways. One was the roll-out of the Raptors, giving us an edge and allowed our Starfighters to threaten their capital ships and the other…” she paused for a moment, looking around, before continuing, her voice filled with reverence “...the other was Admiral Kezost.”

Without thinking about it, I looked around myself, breathing a sigh of relief when there was nobody around us to hear. I had learned about Admiral Kezost at the Academy, learned about her as a war-criminal and traitor but here, an officer I respected and liked, was talking about as if she had been a hero. Not quite knowing what to say, I simply looked at Wildcat, barely managing to keep my facial expression under control.

“But that’s neither here nor there and I shouldn’t talk about it.” she said with a smile, “And it doesn’t really matter, it’s in the past and should stay there. But the war taught the Commodores a lesson, a lesson stuck to them with buckets of blood, the blood of their friends. I was one of the last to join the Squadron in the war and despite that, I lost a few friends. I don’t even want to consider how many the two of them lost.”

“Now, they want to make sure that, if there is another war, their people will be ready. You might be only with us temporarily but Manta thinks you have a lot of potential. And I agree with him there, just so you know.” she continued, her praise making me blush a little.

“Is that why I’ve been at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to skill? Because I have potential?” I asked, a little embarrassed at being praised despite being the worst pilot in both wings.

“Twitch, sweetie, you compare yourself to people who’ve been playing the game for years, some of them longer than you’ve been alive.” she lightly scolded me, reaching out to tousle my hair, treating me like a child. I pushed her hand away, trying to figure out a way to deal with this woman without looking like a petulant child.

“In all seriousness, Carmine-Squadron is one of the best Squadrons in the fleet, the Commodores make sure of that, mainly by kicking our collective asses if we don’t perform. You’ve seen the relaxed side of Commodore Ryker, the nurturing Grandfather, if you will, who wants you to succeed because he thinks that you could become one of the best pilots we have. Even now you are working your way into the lower half of the pilot-rankings, making progress every single day. If I compare you to myself, fresh out of the Academy, you are the better pilot, by an impressive margin. That’s what you need to remember.” she explained and I somewhat understood what she meant, even if it felt a little hollow.

“Thank you, I guess.” I replied, causing her grin only to widen. I was still not quite sure what to think about her current behaviour, but decided that there was nothing I could do about it. And if she wanted to discard all decorum, well, she was the superior officer.

“What do you think they’ll have for us tomorrow?” I asked as we entered the mess, walking towards the food-area. I noticed that a few cadets were present, those who had recently come off the night-shift, with whom I would normally have sat. I also noticed that their expressions were a little comical and I realised that the full officers barely socialised with us Cadets but here I was, casually chatting with a commander. It only took me a split-second to decide that I would stick with the Wildcat, even if I might get teased for it later.

“Could be anything, really. Some of those scenarios were straight from the last war, searching that nebula for example. The Tellurians had better sensors so they enjoyed using that to their advantage, laying traps whenever they could. I heard Manta was taken out in there, the first time?” she asked, sounding as if she was looking for something to tease our wing-leader with. We got food and I followed her to one of the corner-tables, as far away from anyone as possible, maybe so that nobody would hear if we accidentally let something of the classified events earlier slip.

“He was, bad luck mostly. I noticed a flicker on the mass-variance and, after what happened earlier, I was kinda twitchy,” she chuckled at the lame pun with my name, “and managed to get away. Sadly, the nebula was making it pure luck that I got away, literally slipping between the projectiles. He wasn’t as lucky.” I explained, not even wanting to hint at being a better pilot than the Commodore.

“Not bad, not bad.” she nodded along and we continued to chat about individual scenarios, essentially repeating the critique-portion we had but also trying to game out a solution for the problems thrown at us. It was quite enjoyable, even if most of the scenarios didn’t really have a good solution. Which, somehow, just made it more fun to come up with one, our ideas turing rather whacky and slightly suicidal, with only a slim chance of actually working, mostly due to them being so far out of what a sane being would consider that it might just work.

Finally, both of us were too busy yawning and decided that sleep was in order. After we left the mess, Wildcat stopped me, grabbing and lightly squeezing my shoulder.

“I know it’ll be quite hard the next days. If you want or need to talk, I’ll have an open ear. Normally, your wing-man should be there for you, but Commodore Ryker has other duties. Just keep that in mind, okay?” she asked, her voice projecting care and worry.

“Don’t worry about me, I’m tough. But thank you, if I need to talk, I will. And the opposite applies to you as well, if you need an open ear, I’d listen to you.” I promised, even if I was a little confused, until I realised, after walking away, that it was a similar idea to what Airah and I had at the Academy and how valuable it was to have someone to vent. It also made me wonder just how hard the training the Commodores had in mind for us really was.